Shot at, cussed at, starved

La Plata County families drawn by 150-year-old act remain

Homesteading La Plata County

Local families continue to make a mark in La Plata County 150 years after President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act.

On chilly winter day, Pat Greer, 79, gears up to head out and do the daily chores that come with running a ranch and farm. He has lived on his familys homestead, which his father began building in 1903, almost all of his life.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

In this family photograph, Pat Greer’s oldest sister, Allie Jane Greer, is a newborn in 1922 with their parents Frank and Hattie Greer in front of their home in southwestern La Plata County. The home, which also housed the Marvel post office for many years, burned down in 1961, and Pat and Lila Greer rebuilt on the exact same spot.

Courtesy Greer family

Pat and Lila Greers "new" home, built in 1961-62 after the previous home burned down, sits on the foundation of the home built by Pat Greers parents, Frank and Hattie Greer, in Marvel on Frank Greers homestead.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

Frank Greer’s first home on his homestead in 1903 was a picket house, built with logs and sticks standing upright with mud in the chinks. He later built this home, which also served as a general store and Post Office for the Marvel area.

Courtesy Greer family

Still standing after almost 110 years, this small barn was built by Pat Greers father Frank when he homesteaded in Marvel in 1903. Along with another barn and the smokehouse, its one of the few original buildings on the property, where Pat and his wife, Lila, have lived since their marriage in 1953.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

In this undated family photograph, Pat Greer is seen driving a tractor on his family’s homestead in southwestern La Plata County. Pat and Lila Greer’s two sons and three grandsons still run cattle and work the land on the family homestead that dates from 1903.

Courtesy Greer family

The horizon stretches as far as the eye can see at Pat Greers family homestead in Marvel that dates to 1903. The Greers, in partnership with their two sons and three grandsons, still run cattle and raise crops on the land. Here, one of the original fences still stands.

JOSH STEPHENSON/ Durango Herald

Pat and Lila Greer, who live on the land his father, Frank, homesteaded in Marvel in 1903, enjoy telling stories about growing up in southwestern La Plata County. Lila Greer, who grew up on her familys homestead in Picnic Flats, southeast of Marvel, said, "We raised Cain and kids here," as she looked around her home of more than 50 years.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

In a joining of two homesteading families, Frank Wommer Sr., the son of Nicholas and Elizabeth Wommer, married Hattie Ludwig, the daughter of Henry and Emma Ludwig, top, while his twin brother, Louie Wommer, married Hattie’s sister Rose. Frank and Hattie’s granddaughters LaVina Mars and Barbara Jefferies grew up on the Wommer homestead, filed in 1883, and Mars still lives there.

Sisters LaVina Mars, left, and Barbara Jefferies hold one of several original homestead patents, or deeds, branches of their family filed in the Pine River Valley. Mars still lives on the earliest homestead, which their great-grandmother Elizabeth Wommer filed in 1883. The homestead is near the Forest Lakes subdivision, land which their family also once owned.

STEVE LEWIS/Durango Herald

Pat Greers father, Frank, homesteaded in Marvel in 1903 at what is now called Greer Corner. While a new house has been built where the original once stood, several buildings on the property still stand more than a century later, including the smokehouse, seen here, and two barns.

JOSH STEPHENSON / Durango Herald

Pat Greer has a lot of stories to tell about the almost 110 years his family has owned its homestead near Marvel, and he doesnt sugarcoat how hard life was. "We didnt know we were poor, because we were better off than other poor people we knew,"

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

Henry and Emma Ludwig are among the early homesteaders in Barbara Jefferies’ and LaVina Mars’ family tree. Henry Ludwig killed himself after being involved in an altercation over water with another homesteader named Abner Lowell. Ludwig killed Lowell and shot Lowell’s son.

Local families continue to make a mark in La Plata County 150 years after President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act.

On chilly winter day, Pat Greer, 79, gears up to head out and do the daily chores that come with running a ranch and farm. He has lived on his familys homestead, which his father began building in 1903, almost all of his life.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

In this family photograph, Pat Greer’s oldest sister, Allie Jane Greer, is a newborn in 1922 with their parents Frank and Hattie Greer in front of their home in southwestern La Plata County. The home, which also housed the Marvel post office for many years, burned down in 1961, and Pat and Lila Greer rebuilt on the exact same spot.

Courtesy Greer family

Pat and Lila Greers "new" home, built in 1961-62 after the previous home burned down, sits on the foundation of the home built by Pat Greers parents, Frank and Hattie Greer, in Marvel on Frank Greers homestead.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

Frank Greer’s first home on his homestead in 1903 was a picket house, built with logs and sticks standing upright with mud in the chinks. He later built this home, which also served as a general store and Post Office for the Marvel area.

Courtesy Greer family

Still standing after almost 110 years, this small barn was built by Pat Greers father Frank when he homesteaded in Marvel in 1903. Along with another barn and the smokehouse, its one of the few original buildings on the property, where Pat and his wife, Lila, have lived since their marriage in 1953.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

In this undated family photograph, Pat Greer is seen driving a tractor on his family’s homestead in southwestern La Plata County. Pat and Lila Greer’s two sons and three grandsons still run cattle and work the land on the family homestead that dates from 1903.

Courtesy Greer family

The horizon stretches as far as the eye can see at Pat Greers family homestead in Marvel that dates to 1903. The Greers, in partnership with their two sons and three grandsons, still run cattle and raise crops on the land. Here, one of the original fences still stands.

JOSH STEPHENSON/ Durango Herald

Pat and Lila Greer, who live on the land his father, Frank, homesteaded in Marvel in 1903, enjoy telling stories about growing up in southwestern La Plata County. Lila Greer, who grew up on her familys homestead in Picnic Flats, southeast of Marvel, said, "We raised Cain and kids here," as she looked around her home of more than 50 years.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

In a joining of two homesteading families, Frank Wommer Sr., the son of Nicholas and Elizabeth Wommer, married Hattie Ludwig, the daughter of Henry and Emma Ludwig, top, while his twin brother, Louie Wommer, married Hattie’s sister Rose. Frank and Hattie’s granddaughters LaVina Mars and Barbara Jefferies grew up on the Wommer homestead, filed in 1883, and Mars still lives there.

Sisters LaVina Mars, left, and Barbara Jefferies hold one of several original homestead patents, or deeds, branches of their family filed in the Pine River Valley. Mars still lives on the earliest homestead, which their great-grandmother Elizabeth Wommer filed in 1883. The homestead is near the Forest Lakes subdivision, land which their family also once owned.

STEVE LEWIS/Durango Herald

Pat Greers father, Frank, homesteaded in Marvel in 1903 at what is now called Greer Corner. While a new house has been built where the original once stood, several buildings on the property still stand more than a century later, including the smokehouse, seen here, and two barns.

JOSH STEPHENSON / Durango Herald

Pat Greer has a lot of stories to tell about the almost 110 years his family has owned its homestead near Marvel, and he doesnt sugarcoat how hard life was. "We didnt know we were poor, because we were better off than other poor people we knew,"

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

Henry and Emma Ludwig are among the early homesteaders in Barbara Jefferies’ and LaVina Mars’ family tree. Henry Ludwig killed himself after being involved in an altercation over water with another homesteader named Abner Lowell. Ludwig killed Lowell and shot Lowell’s son.

Many of the families that formed the backbone of La Plata County in its first few decades came West following the American dream: to own their own land. This dream was possible in large part because of the Homestead Act signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862.

President John F. Kennedy, in 1962, called the law probably the single greatest stimulus to national development ever enacted.

The act, with additional versions Congress approved over the next 50 years, allowed people to homestead anywhere from 160 acres to 640 acres by improving the land and building a small dwelling.

By and large, people were coming for opportunity; they were coming to establish their families, said Ruth Lambert, the cultural program director for the San Juan Mountains Association, who has done studies in the county documenting older buildings. They were not speculators.

It was a grueling task at best.

James Frazier homesteaded on the Florida Mesa in 1899, when the Ute Strip was opened for staking, and two people were killed in disputes about conflicting claims and boundaries.

He kept a diary for several years, and excerpts are included in Pioneers of the San Juan Country, a history of the areas early settlers.

It might appear to some that homesteading would be an interesting experience and adventure, he wrote in 1904. I do not think anyone who has been through the racket and privations would want another homestead on the same terms. To be shot at and cussed at and to fight a case of protest and worry, working and starving on a place that might all go to another fellow, is not an enjoyable condition.

The early years

I think it was just terrible, said Barbara Jefferies. Her family has several branches that earned homestead patents, or deeds, including the Wommers, who date back to the late 1870s in the Pine River Valley. Everything was hard. They dug ditches by hand and wells by hand.

The Wommer Ditch, which still carries water from the Pine River to farms and ranches in the valley, was dug in 1879 by several homesteaders, including Nicholas Wommer, who started the original homestead with his wife, Elizabeth.

He wasnt getting any water down the ditch, Jefferies said about her great-grandfather Nicholas. So he rode up to see what was happening. Another homesteader shot him in the head and killed him.

Elizabeth was left a widow with six children in July 1882, and was still able to file final papers for her homestead the next year and earn her patent. The area was originally part of the summer hunting grounds of the Ute Indian Tribe.

Jefferies sister, LaVina Mars, still lives on the Wommer homestead, although the original house is no longer standing.

When they tore that down, it had bullet holes in it from the Indians, Mars said. When there were hostilities, Elizabeth would take her children down by the river and hide them in pairs in the willows, so that if some were found and killed, she wouldnt lose all of them.

The Ludwig branch of the family had its own fatality over water: Henry Ludwig killed himself after killing his neighbor Abner Lowell in a shootout when Lowell blocked the water in the ditch.

The family, Jefferies said, thought it would have been considered self-defense.

The Wommer family can now claim seven generations in La Plata County.

On his 21st birthday

Based in the southwestern part of La Plata County, the Greer family can trace its roots in La Plata County back to the Baker Party of 1860-61, the first European Americans who came to the southern San Juan Mountains. But it was the third generation, Pat Greers father Frank, who homesteaded in the Marvel area in 1903.

Pat Greer, who will celebrate his 80th birthday in 2013, and his wife, Lila, still live on the homestead at Greer Corner.

My father staked this homestead on his 21st birthday, Pat Greer said. He took odd jobs, but was pretty big in cattle. He lost virtually everything during the Depression.

The homestead didnt get electricity until 1942 or refrigeration until 1952.

We would butcher five or six hogs, Pat Greer said, pointing out the smokehouse that is still standing. We would smoke hams and bacon, then my mother would can the fresh pork. We didnt waste anything.

Except for the nine months he lived in Durango while studying at the high school, he has always lived on the homestead where he was born. But Greer spent 33 years as an engineer for the highway department to support his family.

Its a hard area to make a living, but a good place to raise kids, he said, looking across the acreage he knows so well.

Sense of community

The isolation was so magnified in those past times, said Lambert, with the San Juan Mountains Association. It was an all-day trip to Durango to get supplies for most of them.

But one thing in particular struck Lambert in her research into the early days of La Plata Countys homesteaders, who had to depend on their neighbors in times of need, and their descendants, who still today are quick to help.

The thing that really came through was the fact that these people have grown up together, gone through school together, tended to marry each other, she said. They seem to have grown up with a sense of community and an understanding thats how you treat people.

Local families continue to make a mark in La Plata County 150 years after President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act.

On chilly winter day, Pat Greer, 79, gears up to head out and do the daily chores that come with running a ranch and farm. He has lived on his familys homestead, which his father began building in 1903, almost all of his life.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

In this family photograph, Pat Greer’s oldest sister, Allie Jane Greer, is a newborn in 1922 with their parents Frank and Hattie Greer in front of their home in southwestern La Plata County. The home, which also housed the Marvel post office for many years, burned down in 1961, and Pat and Lila Greer rebuilt on the exact same spot.

Courtesy Greer family

Pat and Lila Greers "new" home, built in 1961-62 after the previous home burned down, sits on the foundation of the home built by Pat Greers parents, Frank and Hattie Greer, in Marvel on Frank Greers homestead.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

Frank Greer’s first home on his homestead in 1903 was a picket house, built with logs and sticks standing upright with mud in the chinks. He later built this home, which also served as a general store and Post Office for the Marvel area.

Courtesy Greer family

Still standing after almost 110 years, this small barn was built by Pat Greers father Frank when he homesteaded in Marvel in 1903. Along with another barn and the smokehouse, its one of the few original buildings on the property, where Pat and his wife, Lila, have lived since their marriage in 1953.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

In this undated family photograph, Pat Greer is seen driving a tractor on his family’s homestead in southwestern La Plata County. Pat and Lila Greer’s two sons and three grandsons still run cattle and work the land on the family homestead that dates from 1903.

Courtesy Greer family

The horizon stretches as far as the eye can see at Pat Greers family homestead in Marvel that dates to 1903. The Greers, in partnership with their two sons and three grandsons, still run cattle and raise crops on the land. Here, one of the original fences still stands.

JOSH STEPHENSON/ Durango Herald

Pat and Lila Greer, who live on the land his father, Frank, homesteaded in Marvel in 1903, enjoy telling stories about growing up in southwestern La Plata County. Lila Greer, who grew up on her familys homestead in Picnic Flats, southeast of Marvel, said, "We raised Cain and kids here," as she looked around her home of more than 50 years.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

In a joining of two homesteading families, Frank Wommer Sr., the son of Nicholas and Elizabeth Wommer, married Hattie Ludwig, the daughter of Henry and Emma Ludwig, top, while his twin brother, Louie Wommer, married Hattie’s sister Rose. Frank and Hattie’s granddaughters LaVina Mars and Barbara Jefferies grew up on the Wommer homestead, filed in 1883, and Mars still lives there.

Sisters LaVina Mars, left, and Barbara Jefferies hold one of several original homestead patents, or deeds, branches of their family filed in the Pine River Valley. Mars still lives on the earliest homestead, which their great-grandmother Elizabeth Wommer filed in 1883. The homestead is near the Forest Lakes subdivision, land which their family also once owned.

STEVE LEWIS/Durango Herald

Pat Greers father, Frank, homesteaded in Marvel in 1903 at what is now called Greer Corner. While a new house has been built where the original once stood, several buildings on the property still stand more than a century later, including the smokehouse, seen here, and two barns.

JOSH STEPHENSON / Durango Herald

Pat Greer has a lot of stories to tell about the almost 110 years his family has owned its homestead near Marvel, and he doesnt sugarcoat how hard life was. "We didnt know we were poor, because we were better off than other poor people we knew,"

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

Henry and Emma Ludwig are among the early homesteaders in Barbara Jefferies’ and LaVina Mars’ family tree. Henry Ludwig killed himself after being involved in an altercation over water with another homesteader named Abner Lowell. Ludwig killed Lowell and shot Lowell’s son.

Homestead Act facts

In its original version, the Homestead Act of 1862 allowed anyone at least 21 years old who was a head of household to file for 160 acres. Easterners, immigrants, former slaves and women all homesteaded.

The homesteader had to build a 12-by-14 structure and improve the land, generally by farming, before receiving the patent or deed. (Congress neglected to put the word foot in the original version of the act, so scoundrels abounded.)

Homesteaders were required to live on their property for a minimum of five years.

After the richer, riparian corridors were homesteaded, the number of acres allowed increased to as much as 640 acres for raising stock.

The act saw 270 million acres (400,000 square miles), or 10 percent of the U.S., claimed and settled.

Only 40 percent of homesteaders succeeded in filing their patents.

The act was in effect until 1976 in the continental U.S. and until 1986 in Alaska.

For more information, visit www.archives.gov/education/lessons/homestead-act/

Shot at, cussed at, starved

In this family photograph, Pat Greers oldest sister, Allie Jane Greer, is a newborn in 1922 with their parents Frank and Hattie Greer in front of their home in southwestern La Plata County. The home, which also housed the Marvel post office for many years, burned down in 1961, and Pat and Lila Greer rebuilt on the exact same spot.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

The homestead patent being held by sisters LaVina Mars, left, and Barbara Jefferies was filed in 1883 by their great-grandmother Elizabeth Wommer. The land is near the Forest Lakes subdivision in the Pine River Valley. The family eventually owned several homestead patents, or deeds.

STEVE LEWIS/Durango Herald

Pat Greers father, Frank, homesteaded in Marvel in 1903 at what is now called Greer Corner. While a new house has been built where the original once stood, several buildings on the property still stand more than a century later, including the smokehouse, seen here, and two barns.

JOSH STEPHENSON/Durango Herald

Henry and Emma Ludwig were among the early homesteaders in Barbara Jefferies and LaVina Mars family. Henry Ludwig killed himself after being involved in an altercation over water with another homesteader named Abner Lowell. Ludwig killed Lowell and shot Lowells son.